A New Way to Create Your New Year’s Resolution (Even if You’ve Sworn Them Off)

People have some strong feelings about New Year’s resolutions. Some commit fully every year, others swear them off altogether. For those of us who set them year after year, it’s pretty common to lose steam after a little while. Sometimes it’s after a few weeks, and other times a few months. If you can relate to this, or you have completely sworn off resolutions, I’d like to propose an alternative. What if you could come up with a New Year’s resolution that you could actually keep? Something you could successfully accomplish every day… Sound too good to be true?

There have been plenty of success stories of people quitting smoking and remaining smoke-free forever after, or creating a healthy routine that helped them lose and keep the weight off. So, if that’s your goal, GO FOR IT!! For the rest of us, one of the problems with past resolutions is that they’ve been so confining…so “pass or fail.” We set up strict parameters and the minute we violate them, we start to lose steam and fall back into our comfortable, old routines (plus we tend to crap talk ourselves for a bit, too). One way to combat this without swearing off resolutions altogether is to paint your resolution with a broader brush.

Instead of being so specific, you can be much more general. For example, instead of saying you are going to eliminate all processed foods from your diet, you could say you’re going to eat healthier. Instead of saying you’re going to workout at the gym 5 days per week, you could say you’re going to be more active each week. Instead of deducting $100 every week of the year for a savings account, you can work on saving more money.

When you take a broader approach to resolutions, it’s much easier to do SOMETHING every week, and maybe even every day that honors it. Instead of feeling like crap for eating the cupcake, you can feel good about eating that apple or making that healthy, all-natural meal. Instead of telling yourself you’re lazy because you skipped Day 4 of the gym, you can feel good about that 30-minute walk you took on your lunch break. It’s better to pat yourself on the back for packing your own lunch and saving yourself $10, than to beat yourself up for having to pull that $100 back out of savings because of an unexpected expense.

All lifestyle changes stick because of the habits that form to support those changes. Trying to go from zero to sixty and stay there is often more than we can reasonably adjust to. Certainly, there are some changes that require full commitment, like quitting something addictive, or taking drastic steps for life-saving reasons, but those tend to be the exception. Starting with a broader goal will allow us to take those baby-steps that will lead to good habits and build momentum. We’ll feel accomplished and want to keep feeling that way by adding new habits and eliminating older ones gradually. This allows us to build up to the more specific, regimented goals. Totally doable, right? RIGHT!

My 2018 New Year’s Resolution is to stretch my comfort zone. That’s it. I’m not getting any more specific than that. That’s something I can do every single day and there are countless ways I could do that. Now it’s your turn to share. What is your New Year’s Resolution? Share in the comments section.

Thank you for reading – Wishing you a VERY Happy New Year!!

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LOVE LOVE LOVE this, april. especially this brilliant line: “paint your resolution with a broader brush” (such beautiful wording). and you are absolutely right – the more stringent we make the “rules” in our lives, the more likely we are to ignore them. but continuous progress toward an admirable goal . . . what could be better than that? (i like your personal resolution too.)

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Hello, I’m April!

April is a Personal Development Coach. She is a certified Strategic Interventionist, trained Financial Coach and skilled Workshop Designer and Facilitator. She helps growth-minded, life-long learners identify opportunities for reaching their highest potential. She works with clients to create fail-proof strategies using her own unique system. She strives to empower others to live a fulfilling, authentic life both personally and professionally.